By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor
Life is all about the air time for 17-year-old Collin Flintoft. Whether it’s on a football field or a cumulus cloud, he is focused on getting higher, farther and better.
Flintoft is a junior at Loyola High School, where he is the starting punter on the Cubs’ varsity football team. Through four games he is averaging 35.9 yards a kick, including a 57-yarder Friday against Cathedral. So what makes him among the best at his trade? A little help from his friends and good old-fashioned hard work.
“I have a whole routine on the sideline to get ready–drop drills, kicks into the net–just things like that,” says Flintoft, whose Palisades teammates include defensive backs Jack McNamee and Mike Graves, wide receiver/linebacker Paul Trapani and fellow punter George Caratan. “George lives two doors down from me [in the Highlands] and in the offseason we practiced three hours per day, five or six days a week. “My goal is to average between 43 and 47 yards.”
One NFL punter Flintoft tries to emulate is Los Angeles Rams Pro Bowler Johnny Hekker.
“I think of Collin as my little brother–I’d do anything for that guy,” says Caratan, who moved to town from the Fresno area. “If I had to pick one thing about Collin that stands out it’s that he’s very fundamentally sound.”
Graves, who went to St. Matthew’s and played flag football at the Palisades Recreation Center, believes his work ethic and attention to detail set Flintoft apart.
“In the locker room he’s pretty neutral… not too high, not too low,” Graves says. “He works really hard, he puts in the time and you can see how much he cares.”
When he’s not honing his skills on the gridiron, Flintoft is pursuing his other passion: flying.
“I’ve been interested since I was 2 or 3,” Flintoft says. “Whenever my dad was on business trips he’d get me toy planes. I always played flight simulator games on the computer. I got into it early.”
He began working towards his pilot’s license last spring and flies every weekend after Saturday football practice. In the offseason, he takes two to three lessons every week in a Cessna 152, a two-seat prop plane.
“My goal is to have my private [pilot’s] license by next summer,” Flintoft declares with confidence. “It’s a hobby, but I’d like to work in the aviation industry someday, maybe airport management or finance.”
Flintoft enjoys body surfing and beach volleyball and participated in a variety of sports growing up, earning numerous accolades like the Santa Monica Vikings’ Athlete and Scholar Award and the St. Matthew’s Day Camp Jim Lange Award.
While the rest of the team is having a chalk talk in the locker room, Flintoft and Caratan spend most of halftime practicing their punting because, as the saying goes, practice makes perfect.
“We do that to stay loose and get used to the motion,” says Flintoft, who has already netted 575 yards while sticking three kicks inside the opponents’ 20-yard line this season. “A kick can change field position just like that and you always have to be ready.”
Flintoft was a soccer All-Star in AYSO Region 69, helped the Pacific Palisades Volleyball Club’s U14 squad to a No. 2 national ranking in 2013 and traveled to Cooperstown, New York, with the Pacific Palisades Baseball Association All-Stars for the Field of Dreams tournament. He attended Calvary Christian School before matriculating to Loyola and recently got confirmed at Corpus Christi Church.
Flintoft also enjoys working with children in the community. Over the years he has coached kids in sports he used to play: baseball, volleyball, basketball and football. He is currently a Youth Ambassador to the LA84 Olympic Foundation promoting excellence in sports and character and he volunteers for Young Eagles, a non-profit group that organizes free airplane rides with private pilots throughout Los Angeles. Over the summer he applied for an internship with the LAPD in the Aviation Support Unit.
Collin is by no means the only athlete in his family. His sister Caroline is a sophomore at Marlborough High, where she plays tennis and lacrosse, while brother Aidan is a 6th-grader at St. Matthew’s and plays club soccer and volleyball. Their parents, Gerry and Janette, both went to UCLA and they all regularly participate in the Palisades-Will Rogers 5/10K Run on July 4.
Flintoft is a 4.5-star punting recruit by kohlskicking.com (ranked 29th in the nation) and 20th in the Class of 2018 by Chris Sailer. He has attended several invitation- only camps, most recently in the summer in Florida and Wisconsin. Collin’s goal is to follow in the footsteps of his cousin Stefan, a 2014 Loyola graduate now kicking at UCLA.
An honors student with a 3.9 GPA, Flintoft has already been contacted by coaches from Puget Sound, Grinnell and Washington University in St. Louis. He had his first official visit to Notre Dame in the summer and was invited to attend an Irish game in South Bend this season. He is planning future visits to California colleges on Loyola’s bye week in October.
Loyola coach Marvin Sanders thinks the sky is the limit for the Cubs’ rising star.
“Collin has been in our program from the beginning, he takes his job seriously, studies his craft and is the last one on the field after practice,” Sanders said. “Kicking is one-third of this game and you have to be tough mentally. Collin is focused on being the best he can be here and has the work ethic to succeed at the next level too.”
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